"Bingo im Kopf", which means "Bingo in the head", is a German television film from 2019 that had the working title "Willkommen zuhause" ("Welcome home") and I think both titles do really suck, even if for very different reasons. The working title is as general as it gets honestly and could have been picked for a million movies. The actual title may be more specific, but it is a reference to a song used in the title and honestly they were trying to sell us the song as a quality piece of music, not in the commercial version, but in the raw version the protagonist wrote for his then girlfriend. Let me say you: It is not creative. It is uninspired schmaltz of the worst kind and embarrassing that they wanted audiences to think the lyrics here could even remotely be something used in a quality piece of music. But first things first: The director is Christian Theede. I have seen other stuff from him. His fairytale movies weren't too shabby, well some of them at least, but everything ense he has done, everything non-fantastic, is not good at all I must say and this film here is just a perfect example for his weak body of work. Pretty sad to see he has been for two decades in the industry now and still makes movies of this calibre. Then again, other filmmakers do after 40 years, but this still does not make him any better. However, the ones who are at least as much to blame are the two writers. With one writer I am not surprised at all how low the quality here is. With the other I am a bit surprised. His body of work does not imply greatness, but it is somewhere between mediocre and solid, so the outcome here may be his worst career effort so far. You can check out the names for yourself, but to me it is always shocking when two writers work on a screenplay together and the outcome is this low. You'd think and hope they direct attention to each other's mistakes, but here they apparently just brought out the very worst in each other. There are so many flaws with this film, also really obvious ones, that it is honestly highly embarrassing that they still got included. I will talk a bit about these later on. On the photo/poster here on imdb you can see that this movie was released in October 2019, so it is not even a year old. You can also see that it aired during prime time, which maybe explains why the cast includes a handful names that German film buffs will immediately recognize. Not only lead actor Aleardi, but also Peter Prager, maybe Leuenberger and Ellert (she was especially bad with how unrealistically perfect her character was with the know-it-all caring mother) as well. The males are more famous though in this 1.5-hour film. The best example is really Henry Hübchen. His role here is pretty small as he plays the central character's record producer and is basically out of the film entirely if we ignore the beginning and end, but still. He is an actor who also plays protagonists in German theatrical releases and not a bad actor, so no clue why he is in this travesty.
It already starts pretty poor when we have the main character sing his most famous song on stage and how he stops is fairly cringeworthy. Also it becomes immediately clear that not only the song never would have been famous in reality, but also that Aleardi is not a singer on a level where he would have had a big breakthrough that everybody knows him. Even if it is only schlager music. Do foreigners understand this? Anyway, not too important. What I actually wanted to say is that it was a poor casting choice for the lead. Nonetheless, I do not think Aleardi made too much wrong otherwise. Sure the script is so bad that it keeps him from giving a good performance, but honestly I have seen way worse from him and he has been in many crappy films, but somehow it feels that with age he is actually turning into a decent actor. Now if only somebody could help him with his role selection. It would be good if he starred in better movies, even if it is just supporting parts there. The scene in the car with the fan is really the best example of how shallow the writing is. Equally shallow audiences will think oh no he wants to be left alone with this song and now he runs into a groupie. Smart audiences like myself think that the groupie does not recognize him immediately, knows he is a celebrity before she remembers who he is. Is this supposed to be realistic? If you have a CD in your car, and the guy who performs on said CD is the guy who enters your car, then will you initially not know who he is? I cannot believe both writers did not recognize this mistake. So unrealistic. All that follows afterwards is really too much to elaborate on, so I will just stay general and do some brainstorming about all that happens. The sheer quantity of stories is really a joke. Even for a 4.5-hour miniseries, it would have been exaggerated, let alone for a 1.5-hour film. Just a few utterly cringeworthy moments. The rage in the father-son story with the boxing moment that has the father on the ground eventually. The girl who would not talk and how she talks again with that swear word song and starts singing with the main character to end her silence was perhaps the worst moment of the entire movie. So pseudo meaningful, so poorly executed, even if Kötter is kinda cute. What a mess this scene was. The sister plot with her deceased husband. The romance story with the girl the main character ran away from because he did not want the responsibility. Chubby Elke and how she is left by her boyfriend. How the main character changed in terms of character referring to Elke. He bullied her back then, but now he is enlightened. The mother blackmailing her son twice to join that choir. First with a secret about the place where he lives, then with how he has to pay rent and can only do so if he runs the choir. Then the story about the press complaining about the choir's image with the schlager guy in charge. Daddy's boxing past. Then daddy's death. Oh, also there is a guy in a wheelchair who needs directions in life. The outcome is that pretty much everybody I just mentioned is in the choir at the end and is supposed to sing in order to express his worries and struggles and of course all of a sudden, with that approach, they have beautiful voices and it becomes a huge success. I don't even know what to say about this film. I is all so absurd and unrealistic and for the sake of it that it was extremely cringeworthy to watch it all. Of course, the two lovebirds also reunite in the end and kiss, so there is a big romantic happy ending. And even when the film went for comedy, it almost never succeeds. Actually one moment that works somehow is when Aleardi's character says something to the silent girl about her outfit, which was really ironic, and this was actually an example of a scene when Aleardi impressed me a bit. So it seems I end this review on a high note with something I liked, but really this was just the rare good moment that proves the opposite. There is a German proverb about this. Okay that's all then. This film gets a fat thumbs-down from me because almost everything about it sucks. Not even a good watch for music lover because no matter what genre you hear in here (schlager, pop, church music), it is all not good on the ears at all. Stay far, far away from this one. One of so, so many ARD failures.
It already starts pretty poor when we have the main character sing his most famous song on stage and how he stops is fairly cringeworthy. Also it becomes immediately clear that not only the song never would have been famous in reality, but also that Aleardi is not a singer on a level where he would have had a big breakthrough that everybody knows him. Even if it is only schlager music. Do foreigners understand this? Anyway, not too important. What I actually wanted to say is that it was a poor casting choice for the lead. Nonetheless, I do not think Aleardi made too much wrong otherwise. Sure the script is so bad that it keeps him from giving a good performance, but honestly I have seen way worse from him and he has been in many crappy films, but somehow it feels that with age he is actually turning into a decent actor. Now if only somebody could help him with his role selection. It would be good if he starred in better movies, even if it is just supporting parts there. The scene in the car with the fan is really the best example of how shallow the writing is. Equally shallow audiences will think oh no he wants to be left alone with this song and now he runs into a groupie. Smart audiences like myself think that the groupie does not recognize him immediately, knows he is a celebrity before she remembers who he is. Is this supposed to be realistic? If you have a CD in your car, and the guy who performs on said CD is the guy who enters your car, then will you initially not know who he is? I cannot believe both writers did not recognize this mistake. So unrealistic. All that follows afterwards is really too much to elaborate on, so I will just stay general and do some brainstorming about all that happens. The sheer quantity of stories is really a joke. Even for a 4.5-hour miniseries, it would have been exaggerated, let alone for a 1.5-hour film. Just a few utterly cringeworthy moments. The rage in the father-son story with the boxing moment that has the father on the ground eventually. The girl who would not talk and how she talks again with that swear word song and starts singing with the main character to end her silence was perhaps the worst moment of the entire movie. So pseudo meaningful, so poorly executed, even if Kötter is kinda cute. What a mess this scene was. The sister plot with her deceased husband. The romance story with the girl the main character ran away from because he did not want the responsibility. Chubby Elke and how she is left by her boyfriend. How the main character changed in terms of character referring to Elke. He bullied her back then, but now he is enlightened. The mother blackmailing her son twice to join that choir. First with a secret about the place where he lives, then with how he has to pay rent and can only do so if he runs the choir. Then the story about the press complaining about the choir's image with the schlager guy in charge. Daddy's boxing past. Then daddy's death. Oh, also there is a guy in a wheelchair who needs directions in life. The outcome is that pretty much everybody I just mentioned is in the choir at the end and is supposed to sing in order to express his worries and struggles and of course all of a sudden, with that approach, they have beautiful voices and it becomes a huge success. I don't even know what to say about this film. I is all so absurd and unrealistic and for the sake of it that it was extremely cringeworthy to watch it all. Of course, the two lovebirds also reunite in the end and kiss, so there is a big romantic happy ending. And even when the film went for comedy, it almost never succeeds. Actually one moment that works somehow is when Aleardi's character says something to the silent girl about her outfit, which was really ironic, and this was actually an example of a scene when Aleardi impressed me a bit. So it seems I end this review on a high note with something I liked, but really this was just the rare good moment that proves the opposite. There is a German proverb about this. Okay that's all then. This film gets a fat thumbs-down from me because almost everything about it sucks. Not even a good watch for music lover because no matter what genre you hear in here (schlager, pop, church music), it is all not good on the ears at all. Stay far, far away from this one. One of so, so many ARD failures.
